Strada Bianca
by ThePaperBagPrincess
Summary: Lucy Weasley is looking for freedom among the sunflower fields of Italy, but Scorpius Malfoy is looking for Lucy.  And she cannot keep running forever...


**Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. Neither do I own the song lyrics (from The Long and Winding Road, written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, recorded by the Beatles and copyright of Sony Beatles Ltd.) and I have also played havoc with the geography of a certain valley in Umbria - author's license, folks, author's license.**

**A/N: This was written for EllaBethh's 'Prompts, Oh Prompts' challenge on the Next Gen Fanatics Forum, taking the pairing Lucy/Scorpius. The main prompt was Mirror, with additional prompts Sunflower, Bubble and Freedom. I also had extra prompts from PrincessPearl: Pastel, Ivory and Bolt. Thanks also to LittleMissWesley and Ella (whose current pen name is too ridiculous to grace my Author's Note ;-P) for giving me the prompts 'fingertips' and 'thunderbolt' which finally enabled me to get this finished.**

**

* * *

**

**_(_**_Strada Bianca ~__White Road~ __a narrow unpaved, road_**_)_**

* * *

_The long and winding road_

_that leads to your door_

_will never disappear;_

_I've seen that road before._

* * *

To an artist, Italy is almost too much. It's sensory overload. There's so much beauty that you don't know where to turn, or what to paint next.

That's what Lucy thinks when she arrives there anyway. Not that it's a bad thing, just... a bit overwhelming. She finds herself unable to settle to anything initially; no sooner does she sit down to draw one thing than something else catches her eye and she is distracted.

But what she's looking for isn't exactly inspiration anyway, it's freedom. Freedom from the anxious presence of her father, who doesn't want to put fetters on her but who would really rather she followed a more stable career. Freedom from what everyone expects of her. Freedom to find her own place in the world, and her own voice in her art.

Freedom from the confusing and uncomfortable feelings she has started developing for a certain blonde-haired young man.

Because that whole thing really wasn't part of any sort of plan, and it wasn't supposed to happen. Scorpius Malfoy is Slytherin through and through; he's tricky, dangerous and she never really liked him much at school. He and Lucy are polar opposites, and the whole thing is simply too complicated for her.

Rose did the unthinkable at school, and actually became friends with him, but then Rose likes complicated people. So, it seems, does Lucy. Because she met him at Rose's one day and discovered that when you actually bothered to talk to him, he wasn't as cold and uninterested and arrogant as she'd always assumed (well, maybe he was a little arrogant, but it was always with a bit of a smile that made it somehow appealing).

And she liked to look at him, because he was _very_ good-looking, but that was just from an artist's point of view, wasn't it? But then there was that slightly tipsy kiss tinged with the taste of liquor, and her brain started to run wild. He asked her for coffee, and she said no, because that would have been a mistake.

Then she changed her mind and told him so, and it turned out that he'd already made plans. But he cancelled them. Cancelled them for _her_.

That was the beginning, but the middle has got all tangled up, and what the end will be she isn't sure. At first it was simple and sweet. She discovered that he had a fun side – _very _fun, when he wanted to be – and the painting she did of him was one of the best she's ever done.

But things are never that easy, and he's so different from her; he's all smart clothes and fancy cocktail bars and the most expensive thing on the menu... and she's fresh air and green countryside and getting covered in paint. He didn't seem to mind; he seemed to like the fact that she's different. He found her fascinating, and liked her painting, and he even let her drag him out on walks in the countryside and he seemed to enjoy the paint fights... He said their differences don't matter. But she isn't sure that's true; she thinks they _might_ matter, at least to her.

So she's fled to Italy. Part of her knows that running away will do no good. Even that part doesn't care very much.

She goes to Venice first, because she's always wanted to see it, and it is as beautiful as she's always imagined, but it is stiflingly hot and very crowded, and although the tiny narrow streets are picturesque, Lucy has never liked cities, and narrow streets make her feel claustrophobic. And the whole place makes her head spin, and it's partly that that leaves her feeling as though her inspiration has died, like it did when her family first moved to London, years ago. Only this time, she doesn't think that there is going to be any magic to resurrect it; she is going to have to do it herself. Venice is full of beauty, but it isn't _her_ kind of beauty, so she moves on.

And kicks up in Umbria, which is much more to her taste.

She can tell when she is going to love a place because when she arrives there, she immediately looks at everything around her and thinks how she would paint or draw it; which medium she would use, and which colours. This is a pastel landscape, she thinks, as she steps down off the bus at the end of the track. Not the pale, washed-out colours most people associate with the word 'pastel,' but the rich, textured colours and feel you get when using good oil pastels.

Burnt Sienna, she thinks, looking at the colour of the roof of the small house nestled by the side of the road. And some sort of soft green for the fields, with some yellow and blue in it. And Yellow Ochre for the drying grass by the side of the road. And Ivory for the road itself, which is off-white and dusty and almost dazzlingly bright in the hot Italian sun.

She follows this road, because down it, if her instructions are correct, is the place she's going to stay. She found it in a single line of text at the bottom of the page in her guide book, so she doesn't think it's a very fancy place; she hopes not, anyway, as she walks down the dusty road, a backpack slung over her shoulder. It's apparently just a farm really, which also takes visitors. Not one of the luxurious (and expensive) Agriturismo places though, but an ordinary working farm, run by Muggles.

There are cicadas singing in the grass and the sun is hot on her skin, although it's the end of the afternoon. This, she thinks, is freedom. Freedom to get on a bus to the middle of nowhere, carrying only what you can carry in a backpack and fifty euros in your purse.

The farm at the end of that white, un-tarmacked road is everything she imagined, and she quickly settles into the routine of the place.

The busy time is at the first light, when the day is cool. By midday, everyone is resting, the great spreading mulberry tree providing shade over a cobbled courtyard, where cats sleep in patches of dappled sunlight. It is a bubble of peace and silence, and Lucy feels the itch to draw returning to her fingers. For the first few days, she keeps to the farm, basking in the feeling of being back in the countryside. It is a simple life; most of the food is cooked out of doors at this time of year, and it is good, traditional, Italian food. Life rolls by at a slow pace, but the days go by like passing clouds.

Her wand lies unused at the bottom of her bag, because what would she use it for here? At the end of the first week, she glances in a mirror for the first time and sees her honey-blonde hair in a wild fuzz around her face, and the black smudge on her forehead that probably came from the outdoor wood stove.

The thing is, it doesn't matter. Civilisation, both Muggle and Wizarding, is at the far end of that white road, and nobody here cares.

That is freedom.

The next day, she leaves the courtyard to its siesta and wanders into the forest, where she discovers a small, colourful shrine with a model of the Virgin Mary in bright bright blue. She settles herself by a juniper bush and draws it, putting in the colours with smudges of oil pastel.

After that, feeling more and more adventurous, she follows the road again, down into the valley, up the other side through vineyards (and past a gaggle of geese that hiss menacingly at her as she passes), past the ancient abbey on the top of the hill and over into the next valley. There, she finds herself looking down at the brightest, most dazzling piece-of-art-waiting-to-be-done that she has ever seen.

Sunflowers have always been Lucy's flower. Since the day, aged six, when she planted a seed in a pot and watched it grow taller than the house, without any magical help at all (some of her family claimed that she must be practising accidental magic, but Lucy is sure to this day that she wasn't), she has been transfixed by them. The painting of them by the Muggle artist Van Gogh hangs in her room, and it is her dream to paint something that beautiful one day. They are bright and fiery, but somehow serene and at peace at the same time, and their sunshine yellow is her favourite colour.

And below her, spread out in the valley, is field after field of yellow sunflowers, like a carpet of gold that shines in the sun. Running through them is the ribbon of the Ivory-White road, and in the middle is a farmhouse, Burnt Sienna tiles looking at home in the landscape.

Lucy gets out her pastels, sits herself down on the warm dry grass, and begins to draw.

* * *

At the other end of the white road, where it meets the main road, hidden from her view by trees, the bus halts at the lonely stop.

The young man who climbs down looks slightly lost, as though he's not sure if he's in the right place. He's dressed absurdly for the weather and the countryside; a long-sleeved, white shirt that is not nearly as crisp as it was when he put it on in the air-conditioned hotel in Florence that morning, and a pair of smart jeans with equally smart shoes. He looks at the piece of parchment in his hand.

It was Molly who sent him it. He used to think that Molly was the uninteresting little sister; the angelic, high-achieving, overly-serious one. Recently, he's had to rethink that, because she's amazingly perceptive for sixteen, and sometimes she does completely unpredictable things, like this. He thinks it's that Scamander kid's influence.

The letter was sent to her parents, telling them where Lucy is going to be (because they are the kind of parents who would worry, and Lucy isn't that cruel), but somehow Molly stole it, and it arrived through Scorpius' window, accompanied by a hastily scrawled note by Molly herself:

_She's going to be here from the 15th. She's bolted because she's scared. If you want her, go and bloody find her._

He almost laughed, because he thought he'd hidden it so well, and yet little Molly guessed. It still took him another week to make up his mind (or screw up his courage, but he tries not to think that). But it looks like Molly was right about part of her guess anyway, because here he is. He still doesn't know if she was right about the rest of it. That depends on what happens when he finds her sister.

He sets off along the dusty road.

The bus was also air-conditioned, but it is the middle of the day, when no self-respecting Umbrian would go walking around the countryside, and he has not been walking for two minutes before his blonde hair is darkened with sweat at his temples. He stops, pulls his wand out, looks around to make sure that he is not being watched by some Muggle Italian farmer, and performs a cooling spell on himself. He cannot help but look at the country around him and think that she's found a beautiful place to run to.

* * *

The figure appears on the white road, and at first she thinks nothing of it. She assumes that it is a local, or else somebody on the pilgrimage route to Assisi that runs past here. Then, as it gets closer, she realises that it is not dressed either as a local or a pilgrim. A tourist then, and an impractical one at that judging by the clothes.

She puts him in the picture; a smudge of dark olive green against the ivory white. Then she ignores him, and goes back to putting Golden Ochre and Burnt Orange into her sunflowers. She doesn't look his way again until he is close to her, and then she looks up and for a moment, thinks that she is either dreaming or hallucinating. Because Scorpius Malfoy cannot be here; he does not fit in this landscape, and he is not part of this picture.

Except that he is, because she just put him in with a smear of dark oil pastel.

And he doesn't disappear when she blinks.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, and is amazed that there is only the slightest shake to her voice after the shock she's just had.

"That's a nice greeting," he grins mockingly at her, "No 'Scorpius, how lovely to see you!'?"

And suddenly she is furious, because he can _never _be serious, can he? He _always _has to make a sarcastic comment. She doesn't realise until that moment that she was hoping he'd say something different; something meaningful. And her disappointment that even here, he is still Scorpius, turns into anger and she jumps up.

"No!" she says loudly, her voice shattering the peace, "No, because it's _not _lovely to see you! When someone goes abroad to clear their head, Scorpius, they don't want to be followed! I'm fine here; I'm happy; I don't want _you_!"

And oh, how untrue those words are, because she wants him _badly_, in a sudden rush of feelings she didn't even know she had.

His temper rarely flashes back. That's why they balance each other. She may be a Hufflepuff, but she's got the impulsiveness of a Gryffindor, while he is all ice-cool Slytherin. But she is capable of driving the needle under his skin on occasion, and it's partly the knowledge that she alone can do that that both scares her, and draws her like a magnet to him.

Today is one of those times, and she sees his blue eyes flash, but he keeps it under control because he's much better than her at that. He cannot entirely hide the other emotion that flickers behind the mask though; she has hurt him, and she feels a pang of guilt despite herself.

"You're not clearing your head," he says evenly, "You're running away. You're running away from _me_, and Lucy..." he steps closer to her, but there is still a distance between them, "I can't let you do that," he finishes, and she hears, for the first time, the tremor of real emotion behind his voice.

Suddenly, she is aware that she is dressed in a pair of fraying cotton shorts that were trousers before she cut them off above the knee, and a peasant blouse that was white before she wiped her brushes on it so often, and she remembers what she looked like when she looked in the mirror yesterday, and is torn between laughing and crying. She can't believe that he is looking at her in this state and still telling her that he can't let her run away from him.

"I'm not running away," she lies feebly, "I came here because it's beautiful," she waves her arm around, "Look at it. And Merlin, Scorpius, you just sneaked up on me!" her voice takes on an accusing note, "How did you even find out where I was?"

He is still Scorpius, and he has never found it easy to say what he really feels. So instead, he pulls out the crumpled letter that Molly sent him, and holds it out wordlessly. This time, he doesn't even bother trying to hide the hurt in his eyes, although his voice is still calm.

"_If you want her, go and bloody find her," _he quotes, "And I came to find you. But you've made it pretty clear you'd rather I hadn't. So if that's how you feel, then... fine," he breaks off and swallows, "I _do_ want you, Lucy Weasley, and it's not some temporary game I'm playing, the way you seem to think. It wasn't just a bit of fun we could have for a while, at least it wasn't for me. I didn't think it was for you either. But you say you don't want me, so okay. Bye, Lucy. I'll see you when you get back some time."

And she can hear pain and disappointment and broken dreams in his voice, before he turns away to walk back down the white road towards the bus stop, and she feels as if she had held something special in her hands for a moment, but that she has let it slip through her fingertips. She notices suddenly – with an insane urge to laugh at how cliched it is – that the sun has disappeared behind a wall of thick purple-grey cloud, and an ominous growl of thunder rumbles around the sky. It is August, and the thunderstorms here at this time of year are fierce and heavy, and arrive suddenly.

Her throat feels constricted as she watches his back, her pleasure in the landscape spoiled. She looks down at the two pieces of parchment in her hands; one the letter she herself wrote her parents, the other in her sister's handwriting. She reads Molly's note for the first time: '_She's bolted because she's scared.' _Annoyance with Molly is suddenly replaced by a flooding realisation that the words are true. She has not been looking for freedom, she has been looking for safety, but all she has found is loneliness.

She knows that she has hurt him badly, but she doesn't realise how much her cowardice has hurt herself until that moment.

It is time to stop running away.

As the first heavy drops of rain fall, she opens her mouth and calls his name, her voice sounding strange in her ears. She thinks that maybe he is too far away to hear, but he's not, and he turns, a sudden flicker of hope in his eyes.

"Come back," she says, thinking that maybe she has hurt him so much that he won't want to now, and adds absurdly, "It's raining. You'll get wet."

They will both get wet, whatever he does, because they are a mile from the farm and the rain will be torrential in a minute, but her words bring a flash of surprised amusement to his face, followed by confusion.

"I thought..." he begins, but she interrupts.

"I changed my mind. I'm sorry. Don't go."

She's still scared of what might happen; scared of falling; scared that it will not, _can_not, last. And neither of them quite understands whatever is happening.

But he does come back, because he can't do anything else, and they walk the other way together, along a white road that could end anywhere.

Strada Bianca


End file.
